Flying is a bitch. If you ever fly, you probably have experienced some sort of problems with travel. Either a missed flight, a missed connection, or lost luggage. If you travel more than 5 times per year, something has invariably happened to you to slow your travel plans. If that hasn't happened, your lucky! Or maybe you're a Southwest Airlines customer, and I'll explain this later. (And no I don't work for that airline)
My family lives back east, and this winter I went to visit them for the holidays. It was a lot of fun: plenty of food, egg nog, wine, and cookies. I gained 10 pounds just by being around all those calories, and as usual my family all got "happy" and we sang songs and played cards. This might not sound like fun, but my family likes to get really "HAPPY". By "HAPPY", I mean we drink copious amounts of beer, wine, etc., and are extremely loud. And jokes coupled with insults fly freely, so it is really a great time! Just don't come to our house on Christmas if you're sensitive.
I was planning to stay just a few days and the weather was great; snow on Christmas, and then snow again the next day, but then it stopped snowing. I thought this was great for me since there would be no problems flying out after Christmas. Boy was I wrong.
Apparently, on the east coast they were experiencing a terrible snowstorm, but just not in the region where my family lives. So all during the festivities, I was thinking, "I'll have no problem at all getting out. I'm flying west, not east. Boy look at all that snow in NY. They're screwed.". Wrong again.
When the day came for me to fly back home, my flight was still scheduled on time, and I printed my boarding pass that morning. I was still under the impression, I would be flying out that day. I arrived at the airport in plenty of time, but when I walked through the doors, I knew there was going to be trouble. The line for my flight,on Continental airlines, was the longest in the airport. It was in the center of the terminal with US Airways on one side and Southwest on the other. All the passengers on the other airlines had broad smiles on their faces and they seemed to have a holiday glow as they passed me on their way to the gates. However, all the Continental customers had miserable looks on there faces and were completely annoyed. Some of them looked as if they'd been in line for days. I got in line with the rest of the miserable passengers and waited. The line did not move for almost 15 minutes. And then the "natives" became restless:
"What is the deal with this line. It's not even moving.", someone behind me shouted.
"Can we get out today for God's sake!", added another stranded passenger.
I hadn't even thought to check the television monitor for departing flights so I asked a young woman to save my place in line and wandered over to the monitors. It showed all the Continental flights were cancelled. I was dumbfounded, and sulked my way over to the line again so I could figure out my options. I was not happy about my predicament and neither was anyone else.
"All the flights are cancelled. Did you all know that?", I said to the people behind me.
"What?!" , a woman behind me shrieked. "I need to get home. How can they cancel all the flights?"
"I know. I've been here since Monday, trying to get out. They aren't even answering the phone at Continental. So I came here to try and get out.", another man in front of me said, with a definite look of defeat. He was the guy who looked like he'd been in line for days, and apparently he had: literally.
"No friggin way! How can they do that?", I asked.
"They say it's the weather back east. No flights going that way. And their hub is in Jersey"
"What?!" , again the woman shouted. Obviously she was so incensed, she couldn't express herself any further.
So now everyone in line was getting upset. Apparently, I had opened a floodgate to conversation about how poor the service was with Continental Airlines and how awful the employees dressed.
"How could they just not answer the phone? Dont' they care about their customers?"
"What are they doing up there at the counters?"
"Why is it taking so long? That guy has been at the counter for 20 minutes?!"
"What in God's name is that ticket agent wearing? I thought they all had to be in uniform?"
We would all commiserate and watch the interaction between the customers at the counter and the ticket agents. Nearly all of the passengers walked away disgruntled and the ticket agents showed no expression. No remorse; nothing.
"I feel sorry for that lady's husband. She looks like a dead fish.", someone said about one particular agent who had a very "icy" demeanor. Each customer that she attended to walked away with an angry look on their face. Her reaction was always the same, stoic. She didn't even smile when people came up to the counter, just simply took their itinerary and began tapping on her keys. Half the time she didn't even say anything. The passenger would just stand at the counter and she would be pounding away but not even interacting with them. It was as if they weren't even there, standing in front of her.
At this point, we all started to focus on this particular agent. We speculated about her family, her home life, what a hell she must have created for her kids at home. Or could she even have kids? Half of the people in line thought she was frigid, the other thought she must tie her kids up and leave them in the basement while she went to work. A few other theories were that secretly she was a dominatrix somewhere in the city, but it was our job, if we didn't make it out, to find out exactly where. We nicknamed her "The Ice Princess." This little distraction helped because my mood improved. And as I was getting closer and closer to the counter, I thought, "Please don't let me get the Ice Princess. Please...please...please. No Ice Princess." I ensvisioned her in a black rubber corset with a whip, and I almost laughed out loud. But as the line got shorter and shorter (and it should have, we were there for nearly 2 hours); it became apparent who was going to attend to my travel needs.
Sure enough, while I was standing as the next passenger in line, the Ice Princess called to me, "Next person in line." A cry of joy came from the passengers behind me, and a few audible laughs. They were so happy I was "taking the bullet" for them. I felt certain that I was doomed.
"Just here to check in for my flight!", I said, trying to be funny. I handed her my itinerary. She didn't laugh.
"Where are you flying?", she said, not even looking over my itinerary.
"West. Anywhere west. Not east but west.", I said hoping she would get the hint. She didn't.
"No flights are leaving here til next Monday. Can you fly out of Toronto?"
"You mean Canada?"
"Yeah that's where Toronto is. Do you have a passport.", she asked.
"Yeah, uh no. I don't usually carry a passport when I'm flying in the United States. Should I?", again I smiled, trying to find the humor in the situation.
She didn't laugh. She didn't even smirk. She didn't even look up. Just kept staring at the screen and typing away. It was annoying because she didn't even say, "We're sorry for the inconvenience." I looked at the other counter people and they were all doing the same thing. Typing away and ignoring their customers. I thought that was an odd response, especially if you wanted the customers to continue using your airline. I would never ignore my customer or their needs unless the request were unreasonable. I decided to try and help out.
"How bout Cleveland or Chicago. I flew in from Cleveland, can you get me out through Cleveland?", I asked nicely. But I was beginning to lose my patience with her steely demeanor.
"Let me check on that for you.", and I thought her voice perked up a bit. And then she gave me a ray of hope. Her eyebrows raised as if she might have something. A glimmer of hope and then;
"No. No flights to Cleveland right now. They're all booked. In fact there are no seats available on flights for any of the airlines, except Southwest. And of course you'd have to book your own ticket on that airline.", she said and then typed some more. "Oh sorry no seats on Southwest now either.", she added and I almost saw a little smile. She must have heard what I had said about her while waiting in line.
"What do you recommend I do then? Any recommendations?", I asked her as if I was pleading yet still annoyed with her at the same time.
"Sir there are no flights til Monday. I suggest you go back home and wait until Monday. ", she said and handed back my itinerary.
"It's Tuesday now. You're advice is to wait a week? Really that's the best you can do?", now I was visibly irritated and my face flushed.
"There's nothing I can do for you at this time. sorry.", she said and again I saw a slight grin on her face. She had definitely heard the part about her kids being tied up in the basement.
" Thank you very much for NOTHING. I appreciate it.", I said visibly upset for the service, or lack there of.
" Oh my. Well I never...", she said as if she were offended by my remark.
" I bet you never. Who would want to with you", I said and turned and walked out. As I was walking past, one of my fellow stranded passengers shouted after me, "Did you get out?"
"Nope. I'm screwed!", I shouted back at him, "Good luck!"
I went home checked online, called Continental, waited on hold for an hour, and to my surprise, they got me a flight two days later on another airline. As I was on the phone with the ticketing agent, thanking him over and over again for his assistance, I asked, "Why would they tell me there were no flights on any of the airlines if there were?"
"I think they get so frustrated with the system and the line of people complaining that at some point, they just stop caring.", he said over the phone.
"Exactly.", I responded.
That was the problem. I wasn't frustrated that I couldn't fly, I was frustrated that they didn't seem to care. The ticketing agent didn't even apologize, didn't smile, didn't even register that I was a person standing in front of her asking for help. If she had at least acted like she was doing something or empathized with my plight, or wore the dominatrix outfit while pounding her keys, I might fly that airline again. But after that incident and the one that followed. Never again. They LOST a customer for life.
Remember that it's how you respond to a problem with a customer that's more important than the problem itself.
-M
